Sioux Lookout digs into new opportunity

Sioux Lookout is out to chart a new future. The northwestern Ontario town of 5,000 is embarking on a community exercise to draft a new five-year economic development and strategy plan starting in 2015.

Catching the spinoffs from mining in northwestern Ontario and the Far North will be a key driver in Sioux Lookout’s upcoming strategic planning exercise.

Sioux Lookout is out to chart a new
future.

The northwestern Ontario town of 5,000
is embarking on a community exercise to draft a new five-year
economic development and strategy plan starting in 2015.

With new and ongoing activity in the
resource sector, there’s some meat on the bone for economic
development manager Vicki Blanchard to work with.

The potential for Rockex Mining, a
prospective iron ore miner, to establish a hot briquetted iron
processing plant near town has Blanchard excited about employment
opportunities and new revenue for a community that’s largely a
public sector service town.

Sioux Lookout serves as an
administrative, medical and educational hub for many outlying First
Nation communities. These institutions have a huge physical footprint
in town, but don’t pay much in the way of taxes.

“It’s a world-class find,” said
Blanchard about the company’s Lake St. Joseph deposit, “but we’re
really in the early stages.”

The company is searching for a
financing partner and has much First Nation consultation work to do.

But it presents enough of a business
case that it bring a natural gas pipeline to town for the first time
to support a processing plant.

While the company hasn’t officially
announced a location, “I’m working with Rockex to ensure that
they put their plant in Sioux Lookout,” said Blanchard.

The town completed a mining strategy
earlier this year listing at least seven mining companies with
projects in the area, the leading one being Rockex, followed by
Tamaka Gold’s Goldlund property, just off Highway 72.

Blanchard said they’ve worked with
the companies in hosting four foreign investment visits with more
familiarization tours scheduled for this year.

Deriving more community benefits from
mining activity in the region is high on Blanchard’s agenda since
she arrived a year ago from a similar posting in the Municipality of
Greenstone.

That rural municipality, northeast of
Thunder Bay, was involved in the discussions around a north-south
road and rail route into the Ring of Fire.

Greenstone was also chasing down Cliffs
Natural Resources to convince them to build a chromite refinery near
the community.

Blanchard’s still doing digging for
new opportunities, only this time she’s attacking the Ring from
another direction.

Sioux Lookout has signed on as a
project partner with three First Nations on a study for an east-west
transport corridor into the remote mineral belt. It would examine the
impact of a permanent road by way of anticipated traffic volumes and
infrastructure needs.

Blanchard said it’s apparent from her
discussions with First Nation economic development leaders that Sioux
Lookout has a role to play given its position along the Highway
72-599 corridor.

The town and other communities could
serve as staging bases, provide mechanical support, and offer food
and accommodations for personnel headed north into the camps.
“Everybody can get a piece of this,” said Blanchard.

On the labour front, a working group is
taking stock of available skilled trades and looming shortages in
Sioux Lookout, Lac Seul, Hudson and other communities. Their survey
will be rolled out into a training plan and marketing strategy to
attract skilled workers to the area, be they recent graduates or
newcomers to Canada.

To increase the town’s profile, the
municipality received funding from the Invest Canada-Community
Initiatives program is setting up a website for site selection
companies. Blanchard said she set up something similar in Greenstone.

The website would
provide site selectors with information on available real estate,
skilled trade demographics, utility costs and availability, tax
structures, key employers, and other relevant data.

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